“The US mission to India is pleased to announce that we are resuming routine in-person tourist visa appointments in September 2022. Previously scheduled placeholders have now been cancelled.”
— Tweet by US Embassy in India
The United States will resume regular in-person tourist appointments from September, reported TOI-Online. In fact, the US Embassy in India tweeted last Sunday night (May 29), “The US mission to India is pleased to announce that we are resuming routine in-person tourist visa appointments in September 2022. Previously scheduled placeholders have now been cancelled.”
“Applicants whose placeholder appointments were cancelled may now reenter the scheduling system to book regular appointments. Appointments have been opened through 2023. (See the website for availability),” it added.
India was the fifth largest source country for international visitors to the US in 2021 — up five places from pre-pandemic 2019 — despite the deadly Delta wave that saw many countries, including the US, imposing restrictions on outbound travel from India for many months.
The US received about 2.2 crore international visitors last year, down 72 per cent from 2019. Mexico (1.04 crore) and Canada (25.3 lakh) — that share a land border with the US — occupied the top two slots as source countries. India was the third largest overseas source country (not sharing a land border with the US) with 4.3 lakh visitors from here, next only to Colombia (10.6 lakh) and UK (4.6 lakh), according to US Department of Commerce data.
In terms of spending by overseas visitors (not including airfares) in America, Indians were the third highest. The same data showed US travel and tourism-related exports in 2021 was at USD 81 billion. Of this, Mexico accounted for USD 11.7 billion, China at USD 9 billion and India was at USD 5.8 billion.
The 4.3 lakh visitors from India were 71 per cent lower than pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
*************************************************************
Readers
These are extraordinary times. All of us have to rely on high-impact, trustworthy journalism. And this is especially true of the Indian Diaspora. Members of the Indian community overseas cannot be fed with inaccurate news.
Pravasi Samwad is a venture that has no shareholders. It is the result of an impassioned initiative of a handful of Indian journalists spread around the world. We have taken the small step forward with the pledge to provide news with accuracy, free from political and commercial influence. Our aim is to keep you, our readers, informed about developments at ‘home’ and across the world that affect you.
Please help us to keep our journalism independent and free.
In these difficult times, to run a news website requires finances. While every contribution, big or small, will makes a difference, we request our readers to put us in touch with advertisers worldwide. It will be a great help.
For more information: pravasisamwad00@gmail.com
